


Architectural Symmetry

by MissELY, Wolfqng



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Co-workers, F/M, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Malfoy Manor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:09:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26039998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissELY/pseuds/MissELY, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolfqng/pseuds/Wolfqng
Summary: Draco Malfoy hadn't planned on setting foot in Malfoy Manor ever again.Maybe to set it on fire.So when he and his curse-breaking partner, Hermione Granger, were assigned to go there he dashed off a response to their supervisor"Under no circumstances will we take this bloody assignment, are you out of your mind? -DLM"Hermione, however, had other ideas
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 11
Kudos: 225
Collections: July - September Mad Frankenstein Fest 2020





	Architectural Symmetry

**Author's Note:**

> Words by MissELY, art by Wolfqng A.K.A. calliartss
> 
> Part of the Mad Frankenstein 2020 Fest
> 
> The theme of the fest was co-workers and the prompt was "curse breakers"

Draco Malfoy hadn't planned on setting foot in Malfoy Manor ever again. 

Maybe to set it on fire.

After the war he had boarded it up, setting the wards to reject everyone but him, doing his best to make sure that no one would ever enter the building again. 

No one had questioned his choice. He had been the only free Malfoy left in the country. His mother had gone to Paris to attempt to live in anonymity, and his father had been sentenced to Azkaban for many, many years.

At first he had purposefully not thought about that place. He hadn’t wanted to think about the dinners in the formal dining room where he had been terrified to even let the silverware touch the plate, for fear that the noise would call _his_ attention; about the long nights where the only sound in the house had been the echoing screams of his former classmates; about the her writhing on the drawing room floor while his Aunt—

No.

But the universe hadn’t let him forget the Manor forever. 

It was six years after he had boarded it up, three years after his probation had ended, and two years after he had accepted a job as a curse breaker for Gringotts where Hermione Granger had been assigned as his permanent partner at work, that he received an owl assigning him to clear out his childhood home in preparation to sell the place.

He hadn’t known about the sale; his mother had arranged it from abroad. So when the small slip of parchment that the owl had dropped in his lap read “Malfoy Manor,” his whole body had gone cold.

He flexed his hands, once and then again, trying to regain the feeling in them. It helped only a little.

He could not, would not take this assignment. Because if he took this assignment, Granger would take this assignment. And over his dead body would she ever have to set foot in that place ever again.

Dashing off a response to their supervisor, he refused the assignment. 

_Under no circumstances will we take this bloody assignment, are you out of your fucking mind?_ _-DLM_

Well, perhaps “refused” was a polite word for what he did.

Stomping back to the office he shared with Granger, he felt his cheeks going red as his indignation built. It was one thing to assign him to clear out the Manor, that actually made sense on some levels, but it was cruel to assign Granger.

By the time he reached the office, he had worked himself into a right state. He flung open the door with perhaps a touch too much drama, and it banged against the wall.

“Did you get our most recent assignment?” 

Granger pushed back from her desk slightly and raised a single eyebrow, a move he was sure that she had learned from him.

“You’re in a huff. Yes, I did. Why?”

He slammed shut the door behind him with a sharp snap of his wand. “They can’t expect us to—”

She cut him off. “I asked for the assignment.”

Bending her head back over the paperwork that littered her desk, she lifted her quill to resume her work.

“You— _you_ asked for it?” The incredulity was clear in his voice. 

“Yes, I saw it on the docket and requested it.” She still didn’t look up at him, her quill scratching away on the form in front of her.

“But—why?” He spluttered, rooted in place by shock.

“Because it makes sense. It’s your manor.” Granger's reply was tart, delivered in the same tone she had used when she used to give answers in class that she thought should have been obvious back in Hogwarts. It still made him feel slightly stupid.

“It’s not mine; technically it still belongs to my mother.” His correction was automatic, borne out of years of trying to be more right than know-it-all Hermione Granger.

“Well, still, it is Malfoy Manor, is it not?” She sounded exasperated now and finally looked up at him. 

“I mean, yes. But you shouldn’t—”

“I shouldn’t what, Draco?” Her tone was dangerous and made him stop short. He let the silence linger for a moment as he examined her face. Her mouth was set in a muleish line and her chin jutted out just a little. She looked ready for a fight.

Draco reevaluated his approach.

“So, you want to go to the Manor.”

She returned to the form in front of her. It must have been the most important form she ever filled out, because otherwise he might begin to think that she was using it as a shield because she was uncomfortable with this conversation. 

“It’s not a matter of want. There’s an assignment and we’re most suited to complete it. It’d be foolish and dangerous to let another team take it.”

Draco walked to his desk, throwing himself in his chair. 

“I could always take another partner, if you’re really that uncomfortable with it,” she said, not looking up from her papers.

He scoffed in indignation. “No, Granger, if you’re going, I’m going. If anything, _I_ should go with another partner.”

That made her look up. “Why would you do that?” she asked, hurt clear in her expression.

“Merlin, Granger!” He shut his eyes tightly for a second, his hand going to his forehead. He felt the beginnings of a headache building at his temples. “Do you want me to spell it out for you? You were tortured there during the war!”

She blinked at him once, and then again.

“So?”

“ _So?_ ” He ran his hands through his hair, messing up what, just that morning, had been an artfully tousled look. “So maybe you’d be reasonable in not wanting to return somewhere you almost died?” His voice was higher than he’d ever admit to, but this woman was driving him mental.

“Nonsense. It’s an assignment. We’re the team best equipped to handle it. It’s unlikely anyone else would be able to do half as good a job as we’d do, especially knowing how many blood-tied wards and items there must be in the house.”

Draco leaned back and resisted the urge to throw his hands up in exasperation. It was a close thing, and he folded his arms across his chest to keep from gesturing dramatically.

“Fine. Well then. We’re scheduled to go tomorrow. I’ll meet you at our usual space at 7am.”

“Fine. Sounds like a plan.” She gave an infuriatingly calm nod and returned to her paperwork.

He grit his teeth. “Fine.”

Draco slouched in his chair and tried to focus on work, only with mild success.

* * *

The next morning Draco met Granger in front of the Muggle coffee shop that had popped up near the Leaky Cauldron. 

He would have called his tread through the January slush heavy, but from Granger’s raised eyebrow, he was sure she thought he was stomping.

Schooling his expression blank, he stopped next to her. She was holding two carry-away cups; steam was coming out of the small openings in their plastic tops.

She held one out to him wordlessly, and he sketched an only slightly mocking bow before accepting the warm cup.

“I also got some of those croissants you like, they’re in my bag.” Granger said, not looking at him, eyes on the crowd of passing Muggles.

Draco popped off the lid to the cup and blew on the steam rising from the beverage before taking a sip and shutting his eyes, savoring the rich flavor. 

It was perfect, as always. 

He’d never told her his coffee order, but the second time they went off site for an assignment, she’d met him with his exact coffee order. Drip coffee with a shot of espresso and way too much sugar.

“How many?” he asked before taking another sip of the liquid. It was still a touch too hot, but the weather was cold, and the warming charm on his cloak had begun to fade. 

He glanced sidelong at her. Her cheeks were pink from the winter wind, and the minute bouncing she was doing on the balls of her feet told him that she was cold too. Securing the lid back on his coffee, he discretely removed his wand from its holster and cast a warming charm on her, making sure to obscure the movement of his wand from the passing Muggles.

Granger smiled up at him gratefully, but it was strained around the edges, and he could see shadows under her eyes that told him she hadn’t slept well. 

“I got four. One for me, two for you, and then another that I will eat a third of and you will finish off around 10am.”

He frowned at her, and she furrowed her brow in confusion.

“Did I get it wrong? Should I get another? Are you trying to do that no carbs thing again? I told you the first time, that was foolish. Wizarding metabolisms don’t work like Muggle ones do, besides—”

“No, Granger,” he cut her off, fully aware that she would continue to ramble until he said something. “I just want to be sure that you know you don’t have to do this. I can do it by myself, we can get it assigned to some other team. We don’t have to go back.”

Granger shook her head so hard that her wild curls whipped around her face.

She squared her shoulders and faced him head on, tilting her head up slightly so she could look him in his eyes, determination in every line of her face. “No, no. I want to. We have to. Come on, we’d best be off anyway.” 

Draco sighed in exasperation, but nodded his assent. He led the way to the designated apparition point in a nearby alley, just around the corner from the coffee shop. They stopped at the spot and he held out a hand for Granger to grab.

She looked down at it in confusion and then back up at Draco.

“Take it,” he said, wiggling his fingers, “I know the best place to apparate near the Manor so we can get our bearings and start work from the outside in.”

Her smaller hand grasped his; her hands were cold, but the sensation of her delicate fingers lacing through his made his chest feel warm in a way that he refused to interrogate. The squeeze he gave her hand was meant to comfort her, but he thought that it might have comforted him more.

They disapparated.

* * *

They apparated near the gatehouse, outside of the protective wards, but in the shadow of an overly large weeping willow that he used to play under as a child. 

The manor looked almost exactly like it had the last time he saw it. Grey stone with tall rectangular windows, imposing and weathered with age. Malfoy Manor had stood for centuries, and it would stand for centuries more. The stasis charms that his mother had insisted on seemed to have held up, because the lawn was still perfectly manicured and none of the shrubbery was overgrown.

“So, we’re here” he paused and took another sip of his coffee to try to steady himself. He wished that Granger had put just a smidgen of firewhiskey in it for his nerves.

He looked down at her when she didn’t fire off a clever response at his obvious observation. Her mouth was pressed into a thin white line, and he could tell that she was biting the inside of her cheek.

He gave her hand another squeeze; her exhale in response was slightly shaky, but the color returned to her mouth, so he thought it had helped.

“So,” he continued on, “I can take down the stasis and blood wards. The Muggle-repelling charms probably need to be renewed, and we should get a team from the Department for the Control and Regulation of Magical Creatures out here to do a check.”

“You have magical creatures here? Have they not been cared for for five years?!” Distress laced through her tone. Granger still had a soft spot for creatures, she had almost accepted a position in that Department, but Gringotts had lured her away at the last moment with the promise of access to the library kept by the Goblins, which normally humans didn’t have access to.

“Well, the Dark Lord’s snake was always roaming around, I know she’s dead but she might have had babies or something. Those would need to be put down, no way should we risk letting those things live.” Draco shuddered slightly at the memory of that massive snake slithering under his bed at night, that thing had been awful. “There were also peacocks on the ground, but I think the snake took care of all of those before the end of the war. We had Abraxans, but my mother had them rehomed before she left for Paris. Getting the Department for the Control and Regulation of Magical Creatures would more be out of an abundance of caution. I’m not sure if any other creatures, Dark or otherwise were left here, but I sure don’t want to deal with them.”

Hermione nodded, distracted. Her eyes were still on the Manor. “Nagini was sterile. Or at least, that’s what the autopsy of the snake said at the end of the war. We can call them after we’ve gotten into the house though, and are sure that the grounds are empty of curses.”

He nodded in agreement. They stood there in silence for a minute, Hermione’s gaze darting around the grounds, but always coming back to rest on the Manor.

She kept her hand in his.

“What about the building itself?” Her voice was almost lost to the wind and he had to lean in to hear her.

“I can take down the wards on the building, no problem. I set most of them when I locked it up, and if I didn’t, I have access as a Malfoy. I’m most concerned about some of the darker items I know father and then the Dark Lord brought into the house.”

“What sorts of items?” 

“Books bound in human skin that would burn anyone they deemed unworthy.”

“Muggleborns. The books would burn Muggleborns.” She said it with a painfully blank expression on her face. Something in his chest twisted.

He didn’t deny it. “Some of them. Some burned anyone who hadn’t sufficiently blackened their soul with the Dark Arts.”

Her mouth twisted into a grimace. “Charming. What else?”

“The regular. Cursed jewelry, paintings that can imprison you, a scarf that strangles people, there’s a chaise lounge that will put you in a coma if you sit on it.”

“Why would anyone own that?”

A smirk stole across his face. “We frequently forced Wormtail to sit on it when he was getting annoying.”

Hermione’s lips twitched.

“Well then, breakfast and then to work.” Hermione drew her hand back from Draco’s and the loss of her touch made him feel cold all over. His hand tingled where her fingers had laced through his. He clenched his hand to try to rid it of the phantom sensation.

She reached into her little beaded bag, and drew out a paper bag that bore the insignia of their favorite cafe. She handed him two still-warm croissants and took one for herself. They ate in silence before vanishing the remnants of their breakfast and walking up to the Manor gates.

* * *

They worked in silence as they examined the gardens and grounds of the manor. Well, Granger worked in silence, growing more and more quiet as they approached the imposing grey stone building with its sharp peaks and rectangular windows. Draco, for some reason, began running his mouth more.

It was like he couldn't stop himself.

He started with useful information like, “careful Granger, there’s a covered well that’s obscured by the shrubs,” but before long it was unimportant stories about his childhood, like the time his father’s prize albino peacock had chased him up the willow tree they had apparated under. Or how his nanny house elf had been unable to find him for several hours when he decided that playing in the enchanted rose bushes would make a pleasant activity.

They made short work of the grounds. Not much had been magicked, at least not in any way out of the ordinary or dangerous. It was for the best that it took such a short amount of time, it was grey and overcast, and the cold wind of January cut through both of their robes, forcing Draco to readminister the warming charms for both of them every twenty minutes or so. 

After about an hour they had reached the front doors.

Draco sliced open his palm with a hiss and pressed it to the handle of one of the imposing double doors.

The doors swung open silently, revealing the cavernous interior of the Manor. One by one the chandeliers and sconces flickered to life, starting by the door and going down the long hall lined with the portraits of past scions of the House of Malfoy.

Draco maneuvered himself so he was slightly ahead of Granger, doing his best to shield her with his taller frame. Just inside the door he stamped his feet to get the slush off of his dragonhide boots.

This must have brought the attention of the portraits, because a flurry of whispers began echoing around the entryway.

He heard his name on their lips and scowled. Turning to Granger he pushed his hair out of his face and rolled his eyes.

“They’re assholes, but they’re not dangerous. The portraits in my father’s study are the ones we’ll need to watch out for. They kept the real dangerous pieces there.”

The portrait closest to the front door cleared his throat authoritatively.

It was, of course, Septimus Malfoy. Chief advisor to the Minister of Magic from 1789 to 1798. Notable for his support of making Muggle-baiting the official sport of Magical Britain and for being a terrible busy-body. He had always been kept in a place of prominence in the house for his many accomplishments. It helped that he was good looking and hadn’t been driven insane, like some of the other members of the family.

“You’re Draco, Lucius’ boy.” The voice of the painting cut through the silence in the entryway.

Draco ignored the portrait.

“Who is this chit? Is she to be the next Lady Malfoy? Not a bad specimen. We haven’t had curly haired Malfoys since the 1800s. What is she, from the colonies? She has nice breeding hips.”

Draco’s expression was dark, but he was sure his cheeks were bright red. He didn’t respond to his ancestor, instead he slashed a silencing spell in the direction of the portrait.

“Sorry about that,” he said, only daring to look at Hermione out of the corner of his eye. Her cheeks were also stained pink and she had bit down on her plump lower lip.

“It’s fine,” she said, tucking a curl behind her ear, “you should hear my Aunt Mary after a tipple or two. She’s just as bad.”

He let out a reluctant laugh, but rolled his eyes. “You should have heard him at the height of the war. He kept on trying to matchmake all the Death Eaters that would turn up for revels. He was a terrible bigot, but he took great pleasure in meddling in the personal affairs of others.”

They walked several steps into the building, allowing the doors to shut behind them.

“Who did he try to set up?” Hermione asked quietly, flicking her wand in the familiar magic-detection spell that was foundational for curse breaking.

“My favorite was when he tried to set up Madam Parkinson and Severus Snape.”

“Why was that your favorite?” asked Granger, distracted by the readings her detection spell was giving her.

“Because Mr. Parkinson told Snape he was welcome to her, and Snape threatened to throw both Mr. Parkinson and Septimus into the fire if they ever so much as breathed in his direction ever again.”

Her sharp laugh was a touch too high to sound comfortable as it echoed through the empty halls, but it still made them feel slightly less ominous.

They worked through the entry way and the main hallway with relative ease. Draco had to silence nearly every portrait, but there wasn’t much else that needed their attention. There was a hat stand that tried to bite Granger, but she dealt with it quickly, blasting it to small pieces when the curse proved too deeply set into the wood to unwind.

“It was ugly anyway,” Draco said, watching as Hermione swept up the shards of wood with a wave of her wand.

It only took them a little while later to finish the entry way and the hallway. As they got further and further into his childhood home, Granger grew smaller, her arms crossing in front of her when her wand wasn’t out, her shoulders hunching, even her hair seemed to deflate from the lovely cloud of riotous curls that it normally was. She would only answer questions with one word answers and her lips were red from how much she bit them. 

It wasn’t right. She should be bright and bigger than life, not some flower wilting in the dark. How dare this house do this to her.

Draco conversely became more talkative, telling her story after story about the lighter parts of living in Malfoy Manor. How he had cracked that corner of the stone floor with accidental magic when Narcissa had refused to let him spend another night at Blaise’s house. How he had once eaten so many candies at Yule that he had thrown up technicolor on Grandmere Malfoy’s shoes when he went to execute his carefully practiced welcome bow.

As he babbled a cool corner in his brain despaired over how much he was running his mouth. What woman wanted to hear about how he had dressed up as Gilderoy Lockheart for Halloween when he was seven. But each small smile he managed to wrangle from Granger was worth it, and he found himself telling story after story to try to ease the tension around her mouth and eyes.

“I think we should start on the rooms on this floor. My study is the first door on the right. We can start there, I’m almost positive there’s nothing there, but we should still do a sweep, just to be sure.” Draco said, checking one last time that they hadn’t missed anything in the hallway. It was a quadruple check, as was their habit.

“We should do the drawing room.” It was the first full sentence she’d said in over an hour and a half.

“There’s nothing in that room,” he did his best to keep his voice flat and emotionless, but his fist clenched around his wand so tightly that his knuckles went white.

“We need to check it.” Granger’s mouth was set in a muleish line. 

He did his best to keep his voice flat and even. “No. We don’t.”

Granger crossed her arms tightly over her chest and raised a challenging eyebrow at him. Merlin, he regretted teaching her how to do that.

“I emptied it out before I locked the manor up. I burned all the furniture. There’s nothing left in there.”

“Open the room Draco.”

He crossed his arms in front of him, mirroring her stance. “No.”

“Draco, I need you to open the room.” There was an edge to her voice that made his heart twist in his chest.

“No.”

“Damn it, Draco!” She snapped. “Open the fucking room or I’ll blast it open myself.”

Draco stomped over, and with an angry huff and a dramatic wave of his wand, the doors to the drawing room opened outward.

Granger froze.

Her eyes went wide and she took a step into the room.

True to his word, it was empty. When he had come back to the Manor for the first time after the war, he’d blasted every piece of furniture in the room to smithereens. Then he’d physically dismantled the chandelier, pulling it apart by hand and then melting each piece down until there was nothing left in the room but scorch marks and ripped wallpaper.

She stood at the center of the room, and Draco resisted the urge to sweep her up in his arms, away from this room, away from this house.

Her breath was shallow and fast, and it looked like she wasn’t blinking; her pupils pinpoints in her cinnamon eyes.

Draco reached a hand out tentatively, aiming for her shoulder. Before he could touch her, she jerked her shoulders straight and she spun towards him, a hunted look in her eyes that made him feel like there was broken glass in his chest, sharp and painful.

“I’m going to go check your study,” her voice was small and uncertain, so unlike the confident head strong Hermione Granger he had gotten to know. The shards of glass in his chest twisted in deeper.

She didn’t wait for a response, turning on her heel and fleeing the room.

He quickly scanned the room for potential threats; the last thing he wanted was for one of them to have to return to this godforsaken room. Finding nothing, he quickly closed up the room again and walked to his study. 

The door was open and Hermione was standing by a window, looking out onto the January gloom. Her hands were down by her side, fists clenched tight. From where he was he could see the slight tremor in her hands.

“Hermione?” He kept his voice low. 

She turned suddenly, her eyes overbright, color high on her cheeks. His approach was slow and deliberate, his hand out like he was approaching a cornered animal.

“I thought—” she broke off, pressing the palms of her hands into her eyes, “—I thought that coming back here would change something.”

“What would it change?”

“I don’t know, something. I thought that maybe if I could be back in that room, I would understand why it had happened, why sometimes at night I can still hear her laugh, feel the bite of her blade in my arm. But back in that room—” her voice caught and she let out a shaky exhale.

He was an arms length away when she pulled her hands away from her face. Her eyes were rimmed red and her face was flushed. Her mouth twisted in a grimace.

“I’m so sorry Draco, this isn’t professional, I just—”

“Don’t apologize. Don’t you dare apologize to me. Not to anyone.” There was a ferocious urgency to his voice that he was unable to suppress. “You did what you had to. You saved me. You saved us all. You will not stand here in this house, the house you were tortured in, and apologize to me of all people.”

Her eyes, still round and wet, were riveted to his face. She was examining him like he was a specimen under observation. He held still, hoping he passed muster. She must have seen what she was looking for because her mouth softened and she took the hand he was still holding out. When she pulled him towards her, he stumbled, surprised at her strength. His arms went automatically around her waist.

She was looking up at him like he was precious, like he was important, and the glass that had been lodged in his chest, in his lungs, in his heart, seemed to dissolve in a rush of warmth. He brought a hand up to cup her cheek, his thumb brushing over the soft plush of her lower lip.

“Thank you,” Her voice was a near whisper, “I know you didn’t want to be here either. Thank you for coming with me.”

“I’d follow you anywhere. You’re stuck with me. No one else knows my coffee order.”

Hermione let out a breathy laugh. Then she turned to press a kiss into his palm. The feeling of her lips against the sensitive skin of his hand sent shivers down his spine.

“I think you should kiss me now,” her tone was matter of fact, and Draco couldn’t agree more. One hand still on her cheek, the other puller her waist in close, her leaned down and kissed her.

Joy rushed through his veins as fast as a Firebolt. She tasted like coffee and sugar and something that was undeniably Hermione. He couldn’t get enough.

A soft noise of protest from the back of her throat made Draco draw away, a concerned frown on his face. 

“You’re not just doing this because I got emotional, right? This isn’t pity.” Her eyes had narrowed in suspicion and Draco couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Merlin, Granger—Hermione—no. I’ve only been mostly in love with you for over a year. If anything you’re taking pity on me.”

Her smile was full and genuine, and she drew him in for another kiss.

“Good,” she said against his lips. 

With that she gave him another kiss, and then another, and then another.

**Author's Note:**

> You can follow the artist on [tumblr](%E2%80%9Ccalliartss.tumblr.com%E2%80%9D), and you can follow the author on [tumblr](%E2%80%9CMisselylux.tumblr.com%E2%80%9D)


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